Community at work: why humans thrive together (and remote work isn’t cutting it)

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is community. As a business coach and former CEO, I can’t think of a more fitting focus. Let me be blunt: humans thrive in physical communities. Work is a team sport – always has been, always will be. Yet post-Covid, too many companies have lost the plot, blindly embracing fully remote work as the future. Call me old-fashioned (some have), but I’m convinced that going fully remote is like switching to a diet of meal-replacement shakes: convenient at first, slowly soul-destroying in the long run. We need real human connection. And if you care about engagement, performance, and mental health, you should be doubling down on building community in the workplace – not dismantling it in the name of “flexibility.”

Humans are social animals – we’re not built for isolation

Fundamentally, humans are social creatures. We crave interaction, belonging, eye contact – all the subtle signals and shared moments that remind us we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. Strip that away, and you’re left with a job that feels like just work, devoid of camaraderie or laughter. Sure enough, Gallup’s latest research uncovered a troubling “remote work paradox”: fully remote employees globally report the highest engagement (31%) but also the poorest wellbeing. 

In other words, you might be productive tapping away in your spare room, but you’re also more likely to be miserable. Remote workers are less likely to be thriving in their lives (only 36% say they are, versus 42% of hybrid or in-office workers) and far more prone to stress, sadness, anger and loneliness. It’s a classic case of one step forward, two steps back – the work gets done, yet your mental health takes a hammering.

The Gallup data also shows fully remote workers report significantly higher daily stress (45% experience a lot of stress, vs 39% for on-site peers.) So much for the WFH utopia! 

As I often tell clients, if you think everyone prefers working from home, think again. Some might, but plenty are secretly struggling. Being stuck on endless Zoom calls, day after identical day, can drain the life out of you. It’s like living in Groundhog Day, but with more email.

Why I’m a believer

Against this backdrop, I’ve been beating the drum for a return to the office – not out of some archaic control fetish, but because I genuinely believe it’s better for people and for business. Unfashionable opinion? Perhaps. But I’m not here to win popularity contests; I’m here to build great companies. 

In my own firms, I always preferred an in-office culture. And guess what: my teams thrived on it. When I suggest to today’s CEOs that they get people back together in person, some look at me like I’m an exploitative capitalist overlord. “But everyone proved they can work from home! People like the flexibility!” they cry. Sure they do – people also like eating ice cream for dinner, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for them five nights a week.

The truth is, engagement and energy skyrocket when people are in the same room solving problems. When I was scaling up Peer 1 Hosting in Southampton as MD, we encouraged flexibility – staff could work from home if they needed. But we also built such an exciting office and culture that no one wanted to stay home. 

We had an open invitation: come in, have fun, do great work. We even had a slide and an in-office pub in our HQ – more on that in a moment – plus other perks. The result? Our folks happily “paid the tax” of the commute because the payoff was huge: an energising, collaborative atmosphere that made work enjoyable. And crucially, being together meant problems got solved faster, teams gelled better, and new hires integrated quickly (remote hires, by contrast, often struggle to find that “emotional glue” with their team).

Let me be clear: this isn’t about forcing warm bodies into seats for its own sake. It’s about creating a place people want to be. If your team is resisting a return to office, take a hard look in the mirror. If more than half your staff say they’d rather quit than commute, your office, culture and purpose aren’t compelling enough – that’s on you. People will happily commute (even long commutes) if what awaits them is an engaging, supportive community where they feel they belong. But if the office is a dull, soulless cubicle farm or your culture is toxic, of course they’ll stay home in their PJs. The answer isn’t to give up on offices; it’s to fix what’s broken at work.

Community supercharges engagement and performance

Some leaders still think talk of “community” and culture is a bit woo-woo. They couldn’t be more wrong. Community is the bedrock of a high-performance workplace. When people feel connected and part of a tribe, they communicate better, trust each other, and push harder toward shared goals. In fact, a strong, positive culture drives employee engagement – and engaged employees willingly work harder, longer, and more productively. Get culture right and it’s like jet fuel for your business; get it wrong and your bottom line will take a nosedive. I’ve seen both sides.

The truth is that we work harder for people we care about. When your team has bonded – when there’s real community – folks will go through walls for each other and for the business. They’ll also hold each other accountable and lift up underperformers. It’s the difference between a group of mercenaries and a band of brothers/sisters. One just punches the clock; the other fights for the mission and has each other’s backs. 

Building that kind of camaraderie is much easier when people share physical space. There’s a reason the most innovative companies design campuses where employees mingle constantly (think of Apple’s circular campus or Google’s legendary office perks that encourage staying on-site). It’s not about pampering; it’s about creating collisions and connections. Great cultures often have special rituals and shared experiences that bind people together – it could be as simple as a Friday afternoon beer, morning stand-up, or team volunteer day. Those moments are the social glue, and they just don’t land the same over Zoom.

Building community by design: from office pubs to hacker houses

Community at work doesn’t happen by accident – you build it. Sometimes literally. One of my proudest leadership moments was when we set out to create the coolest office in Britain for Peer 1. I wanted us to be the employer of choice in our city, and I knew a shiny new office alone wouldn’t cut it; it had to have the WOW factor and be crafted by our own team. 

So 18 months before our move, we got everyone involved in designing our future workspace. We ran what we called a “snog, marry, or dump” exercise (very British, I know) to figure out what people loved or loathed about offices. Then we made their wish-list come true. The new office ended up with a giant slide, an indoor garden with a 15ft tree, a cinema, a cafeteria – and yes, even an in-house pub for after-work pints. Everything was picked and organised by the team. 

I basically handed over control to a staff committee and said, “Go for it.” Did I worry they’d install a hot tub and bankrupt me? Maybe for five minutes. But in reality they stuck to budget – the fit-out cost one-third of what other fancy offices did – and created a space they truly loved. That office wasn’t just gimmicks; it symbolised our culture of fun, transparency and togetherness. Morale soared, and so did our performance.

On the more extreme end, let me tell you about Pylon, a startup I admire for their all-in approach to team bonding. Pylon’s founding team literally lived together in their office in the early days – full hacker house style. As CEO Marty Kausas recalls, “We infamously both lived and worked out of that office… it got so crowded our founding AE’s desk was 2ft from a co-founder’s mattress”. 

Sounds crazy, right? Internet commenters certainly thought so – when the story got out, the haters piled on, decrying it as “glorifying hustle culture.” But here’s the twist: Pylon thrived. They soon outgrew that loft and moved into a much bigger space (6.97x bigger, to be precise) because the team was scaling fast. Why did Marty insist on a huge office rather than going remote like so many other startups? Because he understood that to get people excited about working in-person, you need to make the office a place they want to come into. 

Their new office – an iconic building in San Francisco – was chosen and decked out to be a magnet for talent. And it worked: since moving in, the team more than doubled to 32 and counting. Marty bet big on in-person community, and the company’s growth reflects that energy. The keyboard warriors can sneer all they like; Pylon is busy building something great the old-fashioned way – with real human beings working side by side, feeding off each other’s passion.

Not every company needs to go as far as building a pub or bunk beds in the conference room. But the principle stands: invest in spaces and experiences that bring your people together. It might be creating a cozy lounge where folks can actually talk (instead of more sterile meeting rooms). It might be starting a tradition like Wednesday team lunches or monthly outings. It could even be simply encouraging people to show up in person more often by subsidising travel or making office days more meaningful (no endless solo Zooms at your desk on office days – schedule collaboration then!). The key is to be intentional. Community thrives when leadership says it matters.

Challenging the status quo (and why community matters more than ever)

I know some readers might still be thinking: “But Dom, remote/hybrid is here to stay. My people demand flexibility. Isn’t insisting on in-person a fast track to resignations?” My response: Demanding anything without purpose is indeed foolish – but inspiring your team to value community is smart. It’s on leadership to paint the vision of why gathering together makes us stronger. And most people, when they experience a vibrant in-person culture, don’t want to leave it. They realise what they’ve been missing. 

Remember, that gallup poll shows that 57% of fully remote workers are either actively or passively job-hunting (no strong attachment to the company); but among those who are engaged and have high wellbeing, that drops to 38%. Engagement + community = retention. If you’re worried folks will quit rather than commute, maybe you’ve got a trust or morale issue already brewing. Fix that, don’t just capitulate to the lowest common denominator.

We’re also at a moment in time, post-pandemic, where mental health needs are off the charts. People are craving connection. A workplace community, done right, can provide a support network and sense of belonging that is hugely protective for mental health. When you feel connected to your colleagues, you’re more resilient in the face of challenges. You have people to vent to on hard days, and cheer you on on good days. You’re part of a community – not just a lone worker bee. That feeling can literally keep burnout at bay. If any CEO thinks prioritising community is too “soft,” I’d say enjoy leading your disengaged, burnt-out team straight into mediocrity. For the rest of us, it’s time to double down on bringing people together.

Build your tribe and the results will follow

This Mental Health Awareness Week, my challenge to leaders is simple: Rebuild the sense of community in your workplace. Be bold and a bit irreverent about it. Host a ridiculous team contest, start a book club, build an office pub (I can highly recommend it!). Do whatever it takes to get humans interacting in person again. 

I’ll stake my reputation on this: in five years, the organisations with the happiest people and the best results will be the ones with thriving in-person communities. They’ll be the companies where teammates actually know each other beyond Slack handles, where trust is strong and culture is lived daily, not just written in a remote handbook.

Community isn’t a nice extra – it’s the foundation for engagement, performance, and yes, mental health. Humans aren’t meant to work in isolation pods. We need the buzz of the hive. In the end, work should be more than a pay slip – it can be a place where we find meaning, connection, and a few laughs over a pint on a Thursday night. And you can’t get that through a screen. Community wins – hands down.

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Written by business coach and leadership coaching expert Dominic Monkhouse. Contact him to schedule a call here. You can order your free copy of his book, Mind Your F**king Business here.